New York: After two years of development, Lawyer Plugin started on their first public version of what promises to be a necessary plugin for any lawyer running a WordPress website.

Lawyer Plugin is the first plugin of its kind: it gives law firms access to many local resources which are automatically added, updated, and synced with Lawyer Plugin's central servers every 24 hours.

The registration takes care of all settings automatically. For instance, a bankruptcy lawyer in Tampa, Florida, creates his profile with his law firm's name, address, city, state, and practice area(s). The plugin automatically pulls bankruptcy- and Florida-related resources onto the resource page which is created by the plugin. With that, the firm becomes part of the peer-to-peer legal directory which is then presented on the websites of every plugin user.

Block Competition When creating the plugin, the peer-to-peer directory presented a major challenge. A law firm does not want to show competing law firms on their website. To solve this problem, Lawyer Plugin has been designed to filter competitors and only displays non-competing listings on each user's website.
Here is how the filter works:

On the Smith & Smith resources page, Lawyer Plugin will display the listing for Lisa Johnson & Associates, as that firm does not compete in Smith & Smith's local market. It will also show the listing for bankruptcy attorneys Foz & Oz. Even though they are bankruptcy lawyers, Foz & Oz are in Los Angeles, and hence not competing with the Tampa, Florida practice.

However, Bradley Baker & James will not be included on Smith & Smith's website, and Smith & Smith will not be included on Bradley Baker & James website. Lisa Johnson & Associates will display listings for all three of the above firms, because none of them compete with her practice.

A Fun Brand for a Serious Industry
Lawyer Plugin breaks out of the stuffy legal mold. On Lawyerplugin.com, users will not find any bookshelves, gavels, or court house columns. Instead, they are offered an outlet for venting with a “Hate Mail” form and noting in their legal disclaimer that the plugin has not exhibited any “violent behavior,” but cautions that the “adolescent years are right around the corner.”

Last year, Lawyer Plugin posted teasers on its Facebook and Twitter profiles as beta testing began. The query was asked: "How awesome will Lawyer Plugin be?" The answers –

Coffee will drink Lawyer Plugin to wake up.

You will never need a flu shot. The flu will need a Lawyer Plugin shot.

The earth will no longer rotate around the sun. The sun will be too busy rotating around Lawyer Plugin.

And it was even expected that Christmas will begin celebrating Lawyer Plugin.

The Lawyer Plugin's financial backers plan to keep the plugin free. Lawyer Plugin will carry on obtaining funding indefinitely as add-ons are developed, and a paid, professional version of Lawyer Plugin is also in the works.

Lawyer Plugin is free and out in the court of public opinion. The developers are thirsty for user feedback and added ideas for features.

The plugin can be downloaded from here. In the WordPress dashboard, users can go to Plugins → Add New, type in "Lawyer Plugin" and set up from the WordPress repository.